Two Guys and a Smeet
by The Invader Androgynous
Summary: Purple finds an abandoned egg and sticks it in his pouch, intending to take it to the smeetery. Unfortunately for him, he forgets it's there until it hatches and he ends up stuck with it. Trouble begins when Red decides it's time to say bye-bye to baby.
1. FourLetter Words

Tap-tap. Tapitty tap-tap-tap. Tap tap. Tap. Bored, Tallest Purple clicked his claws against the frame of the floating monitor tablet. The elevator, not really built for general public use, was cramped with just one tallest and three nervous little advisors following him around. It would have been even worse had Red not weaseled out of inspections duty that morning.

"But Puuuuuur," the ruby-eyed tallest had cooed, grinning like the cat that ate not only the canary but also the whole turkey. "My head hurts soooo much. Can't you do the inspection without me just this one time? It would mean so much to me."

Purple had narrowed his large eyes, crossing his arms across his chest as best he could with what resembled two giant marshmallows attached to each limb. "That's what you said _last_ time. And the time before that, and before that, and…"

Red hovered up, clamping both claws onto Purple's armored shoulders. "But that just proves how much faith I have in your inspections. Besides, you're so much better at them than I am…"

Purple had, as usual, been the one to give in. When he'd left, clever Red had been using a service drone's face to polish a laser while lounging and snacking on nacho chips. "Some gratitude he gives me," Purple muttered. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the nervous assistants scooting as far away from him as the narrow confines of the elevator would allow. It was pretty well known in the Empire that a tallest in a bad mood was far scarier than any alien race an Invader might encounter.

Purple drew out a pen from behind his antennae, sweeping his reflective eyes over the machinery. It was all so gray and oppressive, no wonder Red didn't want to come down there. Besides, everything looked the same, and Red wasn't known for liking fine detail work. "Compression hoses fine, gear 17 fine, egg behind gear 17 fine, air valve thirteen fine…" There he paused.

"Egg behind gear 17?" swooping down in one quick movement, he wrapped two long, spindly green claws around the egg and hefted it up. "For the love of… how much do the mechanics have to BREED?" he pouted, sighing unhappily. "Now I've got to go through all the extra work of taking his egg around to the nursery. How inconsiderate of them!"

"Sir, I could…"

"Did I ASK you to speak?" Purple snapped, cutting off the would-be helpful assistant. Shaking his head violently no, he jumped back and trembled behind a fellow assistant. Half-hazardly, tallest Purple shoved the egg into the brim of his robe and continued on his inspections, the imaginary storm cloud over his head growing larger by the minute as he fumed about Red's reluctance to do his stupid job.

Now, there is something here that requires a moment of explaining. The robes themselves do not have pockets. Rather, there is an opening in the robe that leads to a pouch of skin, much like that of an earthen marsupial. Ever since the invent of cloning had made mating an item of fun that sometimes lead to reproduction instead of the basic means of reproduction, the pouches had gone unused, but were allowed to remain in the Irken genome because they provided handy-dandy sandwich storing compartments. It was into this warm, safe body pouch that Purple had deposited the newly laid egg.

It was there, in his rage over Red leaving him with all the work to do, that Purple forgot the egg.

---

"And so the importance of the Bovine treaty to the third segment of the Western Marsh empire is that…" Blah, blah, blah. Red was busy doing a crossword puzzle; Purple had fallen asleep in his chair and was leaving a little puddle of drool that traced from the edges of his thin mouth onto the carpeted floor. Red might have stopped him, but he was trying to think of a four-letter word meaning "to have intercourse." 

Red leaned back and studied the room. Rows and rows of identical blue tables, plain blue walls. Boring, boring, boring. Red couldn't think of a more boring place for a boring meeting. "Hey Pur, what's a…"

"I'm in labor!" Purple suddenly shrieked, sitting bolt upright. The entire gathered congregation of ambassadors and planetary leaders suddenly seemed locked on the two of them. Red shrank down in his seat, wondering what he'd done wrong in a past life to get partnered with such a nutty companion of a ruler.

"Your tallest," the spotted leader smirked, her lips drawn back in a gruesome sneer. "Is it safe to assume that you have rejoined us after a rather pleasant nap?"

There was a long, heavy pause in which not even a fly dared break the silence. Then, shrieking like a broken fire truck, Purple bolted from the room. Red stared after him in confusion, then shrugged and returned to his crossword puzzle.

"Is something wrong, your tallest?" the speaker inquired.

"Eh? Why, no. He just… he just… forgot to take his psychiatric medication this morning! You know how those crazy schizophrenics are!"

The speaker stared at him incredulously before returning to her interrupted report. Whispers floated like butterflies on a draft of hot air through the room. Red, however, paid no attention to the nasty gossip he'd just started about his partner. After all, he'd just figured out that the word he'd been puzzling over was "Talk."

Meanwhile, a panicky Purple was curled up on the floor of the unisex bathroom, whispering "Why me?" repeatedly. The egg, lying in the folds of his robe, had several large visible cracks in it and a pair of skinny green legs extending out the back of the shell.

"Come in, central base. Central base!" he cried angrily, shaking his communicator. Damn it, he knew he shouldn't have played "Snake" on it so many times. He'd run the batteries down, and if the hatching egg didn't get a pack within moments… well, the only ending to that scenario was death.

Not that Purple particularly cared. After all, it was just some abandoned mechanic's egg, and he was an all-important tallest. One little Irken made no difference to him one way or another. He lifted the egg up, squinting one lavender eye at it.

"Now look, I'm sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. There's nothing I can do because you were stupid enough to hatch where you're going to die."

As if in response to his accusations, the top of the egg popped off and a little green head appeared, blinking against the harsh florescent lights. Round orange-red eyes, a dark tone of cured amber, peered curiously up at Purple through thick eyelashes. Bits of creamy white and red speckled egg clung to tiny but curly antennae.

The smeet looked curiously up at the larger Irken holding the remains of her egg. She blinked at him. "Mama?" she inquired curiously before falling to her side, her tiny body unable to process the air without a pack.

"Why me why me why me?" Purple whined, frantically sticking his head out the door of the bathroom. "Help! Someone help me!" Empty. The halls were as dead as a tomb. All the important people were in the meeting, and anyone unimportant had been told to stay out of sight and was doing so marvelously.

Purple was fully ready to leave the infant for dead, but as his brain had been busy searching for someone to help him, a deeper instinct had awakened in him. Crawling back from a part of his mind long given over to machines and thought dead, the corpse of maternal instinct crawled into his mechanical parts. 

Before his rational mind could react, three small wires shot out of his pack and into the still infant's back, causing her tiny body to convulse as they burned their way into her body and linked up with her spine. Even as Purple was about to shriek in horror from the realization that his body had tied itself to the smeet, she opened her tiny eyes and gasped in a deep breath of air.

Purple, long legs folded under his slender body, stared at the smeet. The smeet stared back, crawling on wobbly hands and knees over towards the stunned tallest. Then up the smeet crawled into his lap, sniffing curiously at him.

"Mama!" the smeet declared joyously before eagerly separating his pouch from the rest of his body and crawling inside. A pregnant bulge jutted out of the formerly slender tallests' middle. 

"Oh no you don't!" he cried, pulling open his pouch in an attempt to dislodge smeet from his middle. Smeet, however, had already curled up in a little ball and gone to sleep. He slapped his forehead hard enough to leave a slight red indentation where his gauntlets hit his head.

He'd thought the bovine treaty meeting was going to be bad, but he'd had no idea it was going to get that bad. Oh well, he might as well leave it in his pocket until he returned to the Massive and could get a technician to clip the little parasite from his body.

Now normally, there would be some questions when someone suddenly exited the room and returned looking about seven months pregnant. However, Red and Purple were pretty well known as ruthless tyrants, unashamed to kill or mutilate their own people. It didn't hurt that the bulge occasionally moved, and Irkens were known for devouring other insectoid species alive. A few smaller insect species in attendance even cast knowing, sympathetic glances toward the tallests' middle.

Red, meanwhile, noticed only his crossword puzzle.

Back on the Massive, wrapped in only a white hospital gown that left him feeling more than exposed, Purple waiting impatiently for the technician to come and cut the wires connecting him to the smeet. The smeet, meanwhile, was awake inside him and crawling around, poking at him.

"Stop it, stop it!" he snapped angrily. At least Red hadn't noticed. He didn't know if he should be offended or relieved at that fact. It really was a toss-up.

The techinician returned, hands shaking. "Your tallest?"

"Yeeeeeees?" he purred, knowing that he wasn't going to like what she was about to say if she were shaking and stammering that badly.

"I… can't just… 'cut it off.' Since you stayed at the meeting instead of rushing back for treatment, she's downloaded part of your memories, and part of your personality."

Purple blinked. "So?"

"So," the technician continued. "Babies babble. She could start giving out military and… personal… secrets of yours at any time."

Purple crossed both his arms and his legs. "Fine then, she'll simply have to be destroyed."

Pain crossed the technician's eyes. The poor smeet destroyed, simply for attaching to the wrong person in an attempt to save her life? But the poor thing had just been born! She hadn't even had a chance to crawl, or learn to speak, or taste her first meal. 

Then a crafty idea slipped through the technician's mind. She knew the tallest was eager to keep the whole smeet incident hushed up, so his chances of getting a second opinion were unlikely. After all, she was the only technician in the whole Empire known for being able to keep secrets. "My tallest," the clever tech gasped. "That could kill YOU!"

Purple looked angrily over at her. "What?" he asked, his voice dripping acid.

"She's got a piece of your data inside her. If that data were simply wiped out, it would cause a critical malfunction in your pack. You'd drop dead within five minutes of her death."

"And there's nothing you can DO about this?" he shrieked, eyes increasing in size as much as his voice increased in pitch.

"I'm sorry, my tallest, I'm sorry!" she pleaded, dropping down to her knees and bowing at his feet.

Purple lifted up the wiggling smeet and stared into her bright eyes as she giggled. "So I'm stuck with her?" he hissed. The technician said nothing, feeling it was more of a rhetorical question than something she was actually supposed to say one thing or another on. 

"Look on the bright side, my tallest. No one will question your… umm… actions. They wouldn't dare!"

Purple looked less than convinced that it was a good thing as he released the naked smeet, who shivered and promptly returned to the inside of his warm pouch, leaving only her curly antennae trailing out of the top. 

"So, how am I supposed to… keep this thing kicking? I'm much too important to die!"

"Of course, my tallest." At that moment, both Irkens noted a rank smell drifting through the room. The tech had to bite her tongue to avoid laughing and getting thrown out an air lock. "May I suggest, first off, diapers?"

After Purple had been thoroughly cleaned out and the smeet tightly diapered and wrapped in a soft blue smeet suit, the technician swallowed down her fear and returned her attention to the tallest. "Your tallest… there's… the matter of what she's going to eat. Smeets this young can't really handle adult foods yet."

"So you're saying…?"

"How good are you at making yourself throw up?"

After a long, heavy pause, the answer came. "No. Way."

"There's not much of another choice, sir! Her body can't produce the digestive juices she needs yet, and needs to get them and her food partially pre-processed from you."

"Isn't there another way?"

The tech lifted up a needle. "There is, but you're not going to like it."

"Anything is better than having to throw up to feed her!"

A good sixty minutes or so later…

"Does she have to BITE?"

The tech cleaned her examination equipment. "You were the one that didn't want to regurgitate food for her."

Purple, his pouch held open as he stared at the smeets activities, winced. "But I didn't know you were going to turn me into… into… a moo cow!"

"Come on, and you never wondered what those little nubs inside your pouch were for before?"

"Actually, I never did, and I could have died happy not finding out."

"Hey, if you want to go the route of controlled puking…"

"I can handle the nibbling!" he sighed, throwing up his hands. "Just until she'd old enough to eat mushed smeet nibblets."

"Of course, my tallest. You wouldn't want to stunt her growth, after all, she does already have a piece of a tallest inside her."

Purple glared at the technician before dragging himself down the hallway, his swollen midsection drawing a few questioning glances, but none of them long enough to warrant a quick death for the viewer. Of course, most of them came to the conclusion that had already been drawn. The tallest, the whispers accused, was a glutton when it came to free food at business conventions.

Now came the fun part… keeping his "condition" as the technician had been calling it out of Red's attention.

Judging from the fact that, twelve hours after Purple had first swelled up, Red had still not yet noticed the addition to his companion it seemed likely that it wouldn't actually be that hard. 


	2. Amber Dreams

The diagram had looked so simple. In fact, it had looked deceptively simple. Why, then, had he followed all the directions to the letter and it just looked… wrong.

"My tallest," Morris, the only technician to currently share in the "smeet-cret" sighed as she shook her head. "One leg through each of the small holes, not two legs through the big hole."

"Sure, if you want to do it the conventional way," the tallest sneered, sticking his non-existent nose in the air. Morris sighed and gently corrected the smeets' diaper as she cooed and kicked. Peering curiously up at Morris, she smiled and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Tickling the smeet's tummy, Morris peered slyly over her right shoulder at the irritated tallest. "So, have you picked a name _yet?"_

"I don't want to get attached to that little… little parasite."

"I see," she said, bouncing the giggling smeet up and down. "Then I suppose you haven't told your co-tallest yet." No answer, so Morris grew a bit more daring. "You know, the tabloids are really eating this up. They claim you're pregnant and that Red is the fa-"

"Don't say it, Morrisey, if you value your life." Morris cringed slightly. The tallest knew that she did not prefer the nickname under any circumstances, and used it like one would tug the leash on an arrogant dog. 

"I just can't believe he hasn't noticed yet."

"Oh, he's noticed," Purple answered, pointing to a treadmill decorated with a giant pink bow in the far corner of his private chambers. "He just thinks I'm getting fat."

Morris settled the smeet down in the crook of her arm, her eyes reflecting bemused confusion. "How does someone who hovers around use a treadmill?"

"I've been wondering that myself."

Morris looked down at her watch. "Oh, my, is it really that late? I've got to be going before my crew wonders where I am. Don't want to get the rumor mills a' turning any more than they already are, ne, ne?"

"Just go!" Purple sighed, collapsing on the bed. With a shrug, Morris returned the wiggling smeet to her blanket and exited quietly, letting the laser-proof door click shut behind her. Some irkens will just never change, she thought with a disgusted shake of her curly antennae.

Purple waited, arms thrown over his pale eyes, until Morris' footsteps faded down the hallway, then quietly sat up and hovered over to where the smeet was busy attempting to curl up enough to chew on her own feet.

He picked up the smeet in both hands, raising her to his face and blowing bubbles onto her tummy. "We'll tell her what I've decided to name you in time, right Amber?" 

The smeet nodded as if she really understood what he was saying, blowing little spit bubbles out of her mouth. Purple sighed and wiped them away with his long fingers, being careful not to scratch her delicate face with the sharp tips of his claw-like hands. 

Purple flopped back on his bed, sprawling out among the softest spreads and silks the Irken Empire possessed. Sinking into the layers of softness, he placed Amber on his belly and tickled her. She giggled, kicking enthusiastically.

Purple tickled her under her chin. "So, do you want to hear a story tonight? Something about a beautiful girl tallest, or perhaps a brave Irken warrior? Or just a lullaby? It is getting awfully late for smeet to be up."

Amber giggled and clapped her hands, crawling inside her "mama's" pouch like it was a warm sleeping bag. She cooed happily, resting her head against Purple's gently moving chest, her tiny thumb stuck in her little round mouth.

It was a good thing that the tallest Purple had always been inclined to sleep on his back, as a rapidly growing smeet lying on his belly each night might have interfered with someone who slept on their face or sides. 

When Purple finally waltzed into the morning meeting over half an hour late, he was met with several fear-faced advisors and a livid-eyed tallest Red. "Where… were… you?" Red asked slowly, wanted to spit and hiss like an alley cat but barely restraining himself.

"Using your treadmill, of course," Purple purred in response, settling down into his chair with a flop and placing a bowl of popcorn on his expansive middle. "So, what's today's business?" The truth was, Amber had awakened in a highly agitated state and had cried inconsolably for a good forty-five minutes before crying herself to sleep. As soon as he could break for Red he'd have to seek Morris' advice. Nursing her hadn't helped, changing her hadn't helped, burping her hadn't helped, and not even her usual calming smeet massage had helped. Perhaps she had an antennae infection…

"Purple, were you even listening to a word I said?" Red snapped, drawing Purple back to reality.

"Of course. You accused me of not listening," Purple quipped.

"And before that?"

After a long pause, Purple simply hung his head in embarrassed silence. "What has been with you lately? You've been in your own little world for the last week, not to mention the fact that you keep patting your belly like it were a lap dog."

Purple, caught by surprise, stared at Red. "I do?" 

"Yes, you do! And you don't even notice it!" 

Purple was doing his best on the outside to defend himself against Red's uncomfortable accusations. On the outside, he was also trying to avoid wincing in pain. For on the inside, Amber had awakened and was eagerly gnawing hungrily on one teat, not exactly the most comfortable feeling in the tender male Irken's book.

"Stop making funny faces at me! This is a serious conversation!"

"My organs hurt; I think I have gas," Purple whined defensively. Inside his body, Amber detached herself from him.

He was about to give a sigh of relief when Amber sighed loudly. "YUM!" she announced happily.

Red and the advisors stared. "Did your belly just say yum?"

"Of course not! You must have been hearing things!"

"My tallest, I heard it-" Purple glared at the advisor, causing him to instantly shush himself and sink down in the chair like his bones had suddenly turned to liquid.

"I know what's going on!" Red accused, pointing a skeletal finger at Purple.

Purple's antennae drooped. Red would never let him keep the smeet. "You do…"

"Of course! My great brain meats have figured it out! You're keeping a rare live Sarenson fly in your pocket to eat, and you don't even intend on OFFERING to share it with me!"

Purple found himself unable to believe what Red had just said. Then again, that was a good thing. Let Red think what he wanted, so long as he didn't think anything near the truth. "Hey, I had to order this thing two years ago! What makes you think I'm giving a duty-shaking slacker like you a piece of my delicacy?" Purple snapped, his hands defensively covering his midsection. "Once I've fattened it up, it's all mine to eat! None for you! I mean, would you share one with me if you had one?"

Red pause for a moment to pretend he was thinking. "No, but that's not the point!" 

"How is that not the point?"

"You share everything with me, but I'm not supposed to share with you."

Needless to say, the tallests being the tallests, this argument is supposed to go on for another twenty-seven point two-five pages, but I highly doubt that would be as interesting as what transpired that night. For you see, a rare Sarenson fly is indeed a delicacy for an Irken. And just thinking about one so near, whether or not it had been properly raised and fattened up, got Red salivating.

The night began calmly enough for Purple. He was running a hot, but not too hot for smeet, cleansing gel bath. Slowly he slipped out of his robes, depositing them simply on the floor of his cleaning chamber. Pulling a large, black object off the wall he brushed it over his skin, dislodging old scales and making a small pile of thin green dead skin on the floor. 

Finally the bath had filled and he slid into it up to the point where the edge of the lapping gel just touched his pouch. Grinning, he cautiously let a little bit drip into the pouch. Within moments, Amber's head shot out, her big eyes flaming with anger. "Squeak squeak!" she protested, noting that her home was filling up with gel.

Purplelaughed and pulled her out of the pouch, cautiously removing her diaper and making a perfect basket into the trash can with it. Fortunately, she hadn't soiled herself too badly, or the idea of putting her in the bath with him would have been disgusting.

While she giggled from his touch he washed her gently, massaging her tiny body. She loved being massaged between the shoulder blades, on the antennae, on her belly and on her limbs. She loved being scratched under her chin best of all, and would lift her head to show when she wanted a good scratch. She'd picked up some smeet parasites, which required Purple's constant grooming of her to keep her from itching herself raw. Fortunately, he'd discovered that the parasites were quite a treat to an adult Irken.

Chewing happily on a rubber ducky, despite the fact that neither Irken had any idea what a duck was, Amber cooed and babbled to herself. Purple, meanwhile, leaned back. His eyes were half shut, shut from bliss but open and paying attention to Amber with a watchfulness that comes only to parents. 

After a long, romantic lullaby that Purple remembered from his own smeethood, he tucked Amber away in his pouch and settled under his sheets. Of course, his memories were far different from what Amber's would be. 

When he'd heard the lullaby, it had been a recording piped over large speakers in the ceiling, a voice he'd heard a hundred times before, never changing. He'd been fifth Irken in the twentieth row out of hundreds, just another number. He'd been a statistic all his life until he became a tallest. Amber, he'd vowed, would never know the pain of being only an unimportant number in an uncaring system.

A quarter after midnight, the door of Purple's room slid silently open by the one Irken with the ability to bypass Purple's security codes: Tallest Red. He licked his lips, the thoughts of the rare treasure he believed Purple to possess making his belly rumble.

Just a wing, he thought. Purple won't mind all that much if I just take a wing…

He crept silently towards Purple's bed, a gray shadow in the blackness of Purple's bedchamber. Delicious, delicious, delicious. Slowly, so as not to awaken Purple, he slid his hands down Purple's bedclothes and into his pouch. 

Red lifted out the gently wiggling bundle. Funny, it didn't feel like a fly. Perhaps it was only a larva, he thought silently to himself. 

What Red hadn't accounted for, however, were Purple's parental instincts having been awakened to their fullest. Within seconds of Amber being taken from his body Purple was awake, and Red found himself on the ground, his head in a strong choke hold, Purple's knee threateningly held at his groin.

"You bastard! You're lucky I didn't kill you!" Purple hissed.

"Purple, Purple! It's me!" Red coughed as the hold tightened.

"…Red…?"

"YES!"

The choke released. "I'm sorry! I thought you were a burglar!"

Red coughed as air finally returned to his bruised lungs. "Geez, Pur, what got you so panicked? Turn on the lights so I can see what's going on!"

Purple paused. "I'd rather not."

"You'd rather… oh come on, I've seen you naked before!"

"That's not my problem…"

"Oh, this is silly! Lights, on!" In response to Red's command, the lights flickered on. Blinking, Red stared at what laid in his lap, eyes wide and mouth preparing to let out the loudest wail of unhappiness he'd probably ever hear in his life. It certainly wasn't a fly.

Purple snatched the infant out of Red's arms. "Don't cry, don't cry, ssssh, ssssh, mama's got you, mama's not going to let anyone hurt you, ssssh."

Amber made unhappy whining noises, kicking her legs and pressing her head into Purple's chest. 

Red slowly staggered back to his feet. "Ma… ma?"

Shamefully, Purple turned his back to Red, keeping it between his co-tallest and his smeet. "You're a… a mother?"

"I found an abandoned egg."

"Why didn't you take it to the smeetery?"

Explaining that he forgot too would be the truth, but Purple was still trying to salvage his pride at that point. "Because… I wanted to keep it."

"Keep it?"

Purple grinned to himself, knowing his back kept Red from seeing the evil intent crossing his face. "Of course. I'm so lonely. We never talk anymore, and everyone else is too scared to talk to me because I'm the tallest. If you hadn't left me all alone, maybe…"

Purple peered over his shoulder. He could tell from the look on Red's face that it wasn't working. Red was buying it, but it wasn't working.

"Oh don't be such a wimp, Purple!"

"I'm not a wimp. Just… all alone. So very alone," he sighed dramatically, sweeping one hand across his forehead as he daintily collapsed onto his bed, smeet still held in his arms.

"Well, you're just going to have to get rid of her," Red said authoritatively, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Says who?"

"Says me, that's who?"

"And who are you?

"The almighty tallest Red, that's who?"

"Really? I didn't know they let giant, talking BUTTS be tallest!"

"That's it!" Red cried, curling his fingers like claws and leaping at Purple. Purple managed to avoid Red by diving sideways. In his arms, Amber giggled. She thought they were playing a fun game.

"Either… either… either that smeet goes, or YOU go!" Red ordered. 

Purple's lower lip trembled sadly. "You… you don't mean that, do you?"

"I'm serious! Dead serious!" Red screamed, turning heel. "When I see you tomorrow morning, that smeet had better be gone!" With that, he left. He knew Purple would give in to him.

The next morning, Red waited impatiently for Purple's arrival to the morning meeting. "Someone go wake my slow assistant tallest," Red said with a wave of his long fingers.

The advisors looked nervously at one another.

"But sir… tallest Purple LEFT!"

---

Smeet Art:

www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=253163


	3. Spiders

"Call out the National Guard! Call out the greatest Irken finders in existence! Heck, even call the GHOSTBUSTERS if it'll bring Purple back!" Red shouted, frantically pacing back and forth in the expansive control room. Beyond, Red's poor beloved Purple could be lost anywhere among the shining stars.

"My poor, defenseless Purple is out there somewhere, and it's all because I tried to make him give up that miniature parasite!" Red lamented, careening about the room as through he might swoon.

"Sir, in his defense, tallest Purple is hardly _defenseless…_"

Red, however, wasn't listening. He was too busy forming a mental picture. In it, soft violins played out a low, melancholy tune. Despite the fact that high florescent lights normally lighted the docking bay, in his mind the only light was thrown from half spent candles. 

Purple, his middle swollen and jutting out of his body, stood with two tattered suitcases before a ship about to leave port. He was sniffling loudly, no, he was outright crying, rubbing the tears away with his long fingers as they fell. His free hand patted the round mass that was the young smeet miserably.

"All aboard for parts unknown," the conductor called. Still weeping, Purple hefted one suitcase in each hand, and slowly boarded the ship, not looking back at the home that was booting him out the door.

"Oh Purple," Red cried, tears glistening on his face. "I'll find you, no matter what!"

Meanwhile, the truth about Purple's situation couldn't have been farther from Red's daydream. Figuring that Red would need some time to fume, rant, and kick small service drones Purple had packed up Amber early that morning and headed to a nearby mall.

Amber, wearing her first real Irken smeet uniform, fidgeted unhappily as Purple removed her from his pouch and gently buckled her into a rented stroller. "Now come on honey, mama can't shop and carry you around in her pouch. You just wiggle too much!"

Amber seemed less than convinced and kicked her tiny feet irritably. To Amber, pouch equaled warm and safe, and stoller equaled cold and a good few of dozens of legs that could potentially injure her. She crouched as far back in it as she could, peering cautiously out at the outside world.

It didn't take long, however, for Amber to become convinced that the outside world wasn't as scary as it was interesting. She waved her arms excitedly at passers-by, drooling and popping spit bubbles. Several times Purple was forced to make uncomfortable "granny stops," when old ladies ganged up on him and brought his trip to a halt so they could pat Amber on the head and fuss over how tiny she was.

"You know, Amby, you're a real ham," Purple mock-scolded his little daughter, so giggled in response and pulled on the sun hat Purple had bought her. His basic premise for the shopping trip was simple. Maybe if he made Amber impossibly, unbearably, illegally cute Red would get to like her enough to grudgingly let her stay.

However, all was not well at the mall. A group of three large, hairy spider-beasts were huddled around a table at the food court, picking at the remains of a "Taco Fly" value meal.

"Man," lamented Larry, the biggest and also stupidest of the bunch. "I hate these processed insect bits."

"Yeah," sighed Samson, the smallest and second least intelligent of the group. "I miss the days when we'd just go out and hunt down a big, juicy insect. Now we've got to be all," he raised his voice a pitch, "politically friendly and environomentimally correct."

Tally, perhaps the only one of the group who understood what Samson had meant to say, sighed and ran her legs through her eating appendages unhappily. "Guys, face it. We need fresh meat or we're going to wither away over here."

At that moment, Purple's rather bad timing of late caused him to wander into the food court, Amber pushed ahead of him, searching for something to satisfy his own hunger. The three spider's jaws could almost be heard dropping in unison.

"Holy…"

"Heaven…"

"Someone pinch me!"

"That's the biggest bug I ever sawed!"

After wiping a shining strand of drool from her mouth, Tally turned back to her male companions. "Guys, I think we're having fresh meat tonight."

"Yeah!" the two males cheered.

Tally gestured for them to shush up quickly, drawing them in closer to her and speaking in a rushed whisper. "Not here, though. Too many security guards. We'll follow her back to her ship, then jump her. But remember, I get the infant."

"Why you?" the other two asked, hair bristling.

Tally smacked them on the backs of their heads. "Because I'm the leader, DUH!"

The two males looked at one another. "Oooooh," they commented. Made sense to their pea-sized brains. Tally sank further down in her chair. What they said about good help being hard to find was only partially true. As far as Tally was concerned, good help was impossible to find.

Purple watched the spiders from his seat, noticing their odd behavior but not really thinking anything beyond it other than he was glad he was a member of a far superior race to the spider-people.

Amber waved her hands excitedly as Purple held out an ice-cream cone to her. Using both hands and her entire lower face, she dug into the cone, lapping it with her little corkscrew tongue. "Amber!" Purple chided gently. "You're getting yourself all full of stickies!"

Amber burped in response as Purple cleaned the treat from her gloved fingers and happy green face. "You are so messy, yes you are!" he cooed, letting Amber lean up and lick his face with her sticky tongue. "Hey, none of that! Now, you got your treat, you're full up of grade-P (for Purple) smeet food, I think we're ready to finish our shopping, don't you?" he asked, hefting the smeet up into the air.

Amber giggled in agreement, kicking her feet. 

After a busy day of shopping and buying things to hopefully please Red into at least forming a truce with Amber, Purple dragged slowly towards his ship. His hoverbelt hummed sadly, worn out from a day of shopping. Oh well, thought Purple, at least it's not my feet that are exhausted. 

That was the last thing he was able to think before he was struck hard in the back of the neck with a hairy leg, sending him crashing to the ground. Packages scattered everywhere around where he fell. He'd thrown up his hands too late to protect himself from impact; as a result a bloody gash ran down the side of his face. 

Purple sat up with a cry of pain, clutching the torn side of his face. His warm blood steamed on the cold pavement. Samson loomed up above him, slamming him hard across the face for a second time with a giant spider leg. Purple heard something crack as he fell back to the cold floor, shocks of pain racing through his hands as they were skinned up and bloodied by the impact.

The spider slammed into his back multiple times, causing Purple's body to twist and convulse against the ground. It hurt so badly, racing up and down his spine. Purple, having been caught entirely by surprise, could do little but curl up in a ball and attempt to defend a sobbing Amber, returned to the supposed safety of his pouch, from the brutal blows being slammed on him by the spider.

The world seemed to spin as Purple was hefted up and slammed hard into a wall. Something in his back made a loud crackling noise and all his surroundings turned to tones of red and black for a few moments, followed by bright lights flashing. 

The spider's hairy legs were all over his body, tearing at his clothes, digging into his pouch. Amber, inside, wailed hysterically as the Tally seized her up, ripping her from Purple's pouch. "You're going to taste great," Tally grinned, raising the smeet high above her open mouth by one leg.

What happened next, not even Tallest Purple would be able to testify. All he could remember was hearing something snap in the back of his brain, then the world turning to a brilliant Red. When the tallest would awaken, he would still lying on his side in the parking complex. Amber would be buried in his side, still sobbing miserably from the spider having pulled her antennae, and three rather dead and battered spiders would be lying in a partial circle around him.

Purple stared at the dead spiders for a few moments before strapping their bodies to the back of his ship. Spider leg meat, after all, was one of Red's favorite treats. It couldn't hurt to bribe him.

It was really rather sad that Purple was unable to remember those few ultimate moments of glory, for there is nothing that fights more brutally than a cornered mother protecting the life of her cherished young. Had she lived to tell the tale, Tally would have sworn that the big bug's eyes had glowed with an unnatural Purple flame, right before he'd laid a punch like a semi-truck into her midsection.

The smeet had fallen from her clutch into the bug's arms right as he'd slammed a second kick directly into the middle of her body, flipping her straight over onto her back. Still holding the smeet in one arm, Purple had leaped across her body, expertly unhinging a laser blade from his belt and digging it into her middle. With a single slash of the blade, he dragged it through her middle and let her intestines poke out at the world.

The other two spiders roared in anger, thinking their leader only wounded, and charged the tallest. Dodging lightly underneath them, he'd heard the satisfying sound of their heads clunking together as he rolled to his feet, Amber whimpering and wailing in his grip. With a single slice of the blade he struck into the side of the biggest spider's head, splattering hot blood across the cold walls. 

The spider, not wounded enough to die, turned on him and slammed him in the middle, throwing him to the ground. Amber shrieked in smeet horror, clinging to her mother as the two slid across the pavement.

"You frightened my daughter," Purple panted as he struggled to his feet, his hover belt damaged in the battle and giving off thick black smoke that added to his frightening look. "That's unforgivable."

The smaller spider lunged at Purple, who buried the end of his blade up to the hilt straight into the spider's head. The spider, blood leaking from out of his eye sockets, fell dead at Purple's feet.

"You're out of weapons," the wounded giant spider hissed, raising up on his back legs. "I'll avenge them as I gouge out your baby's eyes and make jelly of her brains!"

The spider shot straight at Purple, his legs aimed like weapons, but Purple had deployed his own sharp spider legs. The real spider impaled his chest into the four sharp-ended appendages. Still he was not hurt enough to die, and swung angrily at Purple, hitting him just right to rip Amber from his arms. The smeet tumbled from Purple, falling to the pavement with a screech of pain.

Even Purple and the spider weren't really sure what happened next, but it involved Purple driving his fist into the spider's gut hard enough that, when the spiders would be diced up to serve later, the cooks would find the spider's stomach partially inverted into his throat. 

Then, rushing to Amber's side, Purple had collapsed from exhaustion and high amounts of adrenaline coursing through his blood stream but not having any target to act upon. He lay still for only about two minutes, then slowly sat up and rubbed his lavender eyes.

Finding the dead spiders, he did as has already been stated. That night, Red complimented Purple on his excellent choice of "tenderized" spider meat. Purple found it wise not to mention who had tenderized the spiders. No sense in making Red worry, he figured.

"So," Purple cooed, slyly stirring his drink as Amber, inside his pouch, simply took her drink straight out of the source. Purple had to admit, he was intensely looking forward to the day when she'd be at least partially weaned. Frankly, she tended to chew on rather sensitive flaps of flesh. "I heard you went frantic when you thought I'd run away, sending all your available crews to look for me, and they couldn't even find me at a mall?"

"Rumors, all rumors!" Red shouted. "I knew you'd come crawling back, I just hoped it would be without smeet like I ordered."

"Tough. She's mine and she stays."

Red narrowed his eyes. We'll see about that, he thought. We'll see about that. 

===

More Art: 

First few pictures.


	4. Mushed up Nacho Messes

Her antennae were thick and luscious, as straight and black as the eyelashes lining her crimson orbs. Her lips were slightly parted, her mouth open only enough to be sensual as she ran the tips of her claw-like fingers down her antennae, teasingly caressing from the back of her head down her neck, lower and lower until her fingers dipped under her uniform top.

"Oh, Allison," Red muttered, snuggling his face against her softness. "Don't stop, don't stop!"

Slowly, she gently opened her mouth, and whispered…

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Red sat bolt upright, striking the back of his head on the headboard of his comfortable bed. His arms were not wrapped around a luscious, eager female Irken, but his own plain, white, lumpy pillow. He had deep scarlet sheets wrapped around his legs, not soft and fleshy legs. The sudden sound had not come from an adult female, but from the crying smeet in the next room.

Throwing down his pillow, Red flung on his black terrycloth robe and stormed into the adjacent room. Inside Purple rocked a wailing, red-faced Amber in his arms, hurriedly trying to shush her. "Amber, Amber, please! You'll wake up Red. You don't want to wake up grumpy ol' Red, do you?"

Amber paused as if thinking, then regained her loud wailing. Red, irritated at being called grumpy and old, stomped into the room. "She already woke the big, bad tallest," Red snapped, rubbing his still sleepy eyes with the backs of his fists.

Ignoring Red's anger, Purple hefted the hiccuping Amber over his shoulder and patted her back. "I don't know what's wrong with her, she usually doesn't wail like this!   
Maybe I really should have Morris check if she had an antennae infection, poor little thing." In his arms, Amber's feet kicked frantically in mid-air as she continued to sob, her tiny hands drawn up into pained fists.

"Poor little Amber? What about poor tallest Red? Purple, since she got old enough to find her voice, she hasn't stopped crying! I can't remember what it's like to sleep through the night," Red cried, dramatically sweeping his claw across his face and mock swooning to the floor.

"Just be grateful that you're not the one whose room she sleeps in," Purple responded, sticking out his long tongue at Red. Amber, still thrown over his shoulder, let out a belch to shame a beer-guzzling frat boy before returning back to her angry wailing. "Oh, did I tell you what happened at the mall?"

"No, you didn't," Red answered, thinking he was going to get the story of how Purple had managed to get so much tasty spider meat so cheaply.

"Amber needed a changing, and the only baby changing stands were in the women's bathrooms? Can you believe that?"

Red stared. "I care about that… why?"

"Because it's blatant sexism, that's what! I had to swallow my pride and deal with the fact that everyone says our robes look like dresses in order to change my Amber!"

Red found himself staring even more blankly. Purple in the women's bathroom. That just seemed… wrong… somehow. Especially with a smeet. Especially with a crying, wailing, farting, crying, burping, screaming smeet in his arms… Red clamped his hands over his antennae. They were starting to ring from the noise of Amber's protests.

Unable to take it anymore, Red ripped Amber out of Purple's protective grip. "STOP CRYING!" he shouted hysterically, holding the infant up high above his head. Amber stopped screaming long enough to giggle, right as a loud farting noise emanated from her behind.

A split second later, Red felt something drop against his face. Slowly, he lowered Amber down, handing her back over to a nervous Purple. Even more slowly, he raised his fingers to his face, rubbing the mysterious substance. He pulled his hand away, noticing the way it stuck to his fingers.

"Oh! The poor thing has a leaky diaper!" Purple cried, studying Amber. "No wonder she was crying!"

"Diaper? You mean she… she peed on me?" Red cried.

Purple paused, looking inside Amber's diaper. "It's… uh… worse than pee..."

Red barely made it back to his own bathroom in time to puke up the previous day's pizza all over the toilet and bath, requiring a late night "emergency" visit from janitorial. Purple, meanwhile, sought out medical attention for Amber's "Hershey squirts."

The next morning Red finally managed to bring himself to creep out of his bedroom around nine a.m. He felt like crud, and he was sure janitorial was currently telling "interesting" stories about him behind his back. Thus, he was less than enthused to arrive into the royal dining room to find Purple down on his knees before Amber's high chair, a can of baby nachos in his right hand and a tiny spoon in his left.

"Oh, are you feeling better after last night?" Purple inquired sweetly, grinning knowingly at Red.

"Shut your face," Red snapped, slumping down into his chair. "What in mother Irk's name are you doing?"

"It turns out that Amber's getting the… uh… runs because she's getting too old to continue only nursing. She needs solids and fibers in her diet. So today I'm going to start trying to get her to eat smeet food."

Amber giggled and waved her arms enthusiastically, aware that her little high chair meant that she was going to be fed. Amber was, however, expecting a fresh bottle to be presented to her. Needless to say, when a silver spoon arrived instead, Amber was less than happy about it.

Amber shut her mouth and well as her eyes, scrunching up her face and turning away from the spoon. "Come on, Amber, it's nummy! Num, num, num!" Purple coaxed, dangling the spoon in front of Amber's face.

She opened her eyes long enough to give her opinion of the smelly pile of mush pushed in front of her as food. "PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPTH!" Amber declared.

"Amber!" Purple sighed, "That's not polite." Amber wrinkled up her face again and grinned through the wrinkles at Purple. "Come on, Amber! For daddy?"

Amber shook her head back and forth, indicating that the answer was a big "No."

Purple glared at Red, who had finally lost his ability to hold the snickers in. He'd been biting his lower lip to keep from laughing at Purple's problems, but his internal damn had burst with Amber's last gesture. He was so busy laughing and pounding on the table that he hadn't even noticed that he was bleeding from biting down on his lip so hard. 

Purple threw his head back, trying to pretend that Red's giggles weren't getting to him. "Look, Amber, here comes the space ship. Nyeeeeeeeeeeeeeerow, nyeower, vroom, vroom! Won't you open up the hanger for the space ship?"

Amber, suspicious, opened her mouth only an itty bit. That was enough for Purple, who took the opportunity to stick the laden spoon between her tiny lips. Amber chewed on it for a few moments, her tiny eyes reflecting deep thought.

"Well?" Purple asked hopefully, clutching the spoon tightly between his fingers.

"PPPPPPPPPPPPPTH!" Amber replied, spitting slobber-covered baby nachos all over Purple's face. His antennae drooping, Purple reached for a towel to clean himself up. It was unlikely, however, that the robes he was wearing would ever be the same.

By that point, Red was howling like a monkey with laughter, rolling around on the floor and kicking his skinny legs in the air from the perceived humor. "Oh, oh, Purple," he gasped, each word separated by a pause so that he could attempt to suck in air to support his laughing. "Watching this almost makes up for last night," Red snickered, holding his ribs. He'd laughed so hard they were starting to hurt!

"Did I laugh at you?" Purple asked angrily before returning to the task of attempting to get Amber to eat semi-solid foods. "Come on, baby, nachos are good for a growing smeet," Purple encouraged.

"Yuck!" Amber declared, kicking her feet and sticking out her segmented tongue. Purple sighed, his eyes downcast. This parenting thing wasn't going to be as easy, as neat, or as cute as he'd thought.

It took well over an hour, but Purple managed to get an entire serving of baby nachos down Amber's throat. The two had finally been able to come to a compromise when he'd realized it was the metal spoon Amber was largely objecting too. This was after he'd noticed that she'd eat the nachos just fine with her hands.

It was a good thing that there were two servings in each bottle, Purple observed silently. After all, the other serving had been entirely deposited on his face, his front, Amber's face, Amber's hands and her clothing. About the only place on her body that hadn't been stickied up with baby food was the area directly under her bib, which made Purple wonder if the bib was worth it after all. 

Purple sighed as he looked up at the clock. Only fifteen minutes until the meeting with the big Planet Jacker ambassadors, in order to attempt to explain to them why Zim was located on a planet that wasn't marked as Irken potential property on the map. Red was clever enough to handle it on his own, Purple figured, but he knew he should be there. The Jackers would take it as a sign of disrespect if he failed to show.

All Purple really had time to do was wash large chunks and sticky bits off of his and Amber's bodies before having to arrive at the meeting, his robe still stained from flying baby food bits. Amber, jiggling in his arms, waved and cooed at the gathered group of Jacker ambassadors.

Out of the corner of his eye, Purple noticed Red attempting to hold back a snicker as he settled into his seat. The Jackers, meanwhile, were staring. "Your tallest… you've got nacho bits on your antennae," one pointed out as politely as a Planet Jacker was capable of being.

Purple sighed. "Do I?" he asked, reaching up and stroking his antennae until the offending food item fell off and onto the floor. "You'll have to excuse my appearance," he said quietly, still exhausted from being up all of the previous night. "Smeet," he said simply, referring to the sleeping Amber cuddled in his arms.

"That's why we hire nannies," the female Jacker ambassador said shortly.

"I could never do that!" Purple gasped, wide-eyed. After all, what if she blabbed important military codes in front of a less than loyal nanny, or simply one who realized a chance to make some money when they saw one? 

"Why not?" Red asked critically.

Purple cringed nervously. He hadn't told Red yet, and wasn't sure he wanted to. "Because, she's my baby, and I'd never, ever dream of parting with her."

The Jackers looked less than impressed by Purple's lovey-dovey act of loyalty to his adopted daughter. Red, meanwhile, was studying the Planet Jackers intently. Perhaps they were the answer to getting him some sleep.

Halfway through the meeting, while Amber was busy attempting to eat a piece of paper containing important facts, the Jacker leader sat up, what passed for his nose twitching intently. "I smell something… *cough* ripe…"

Red gagged a bit himself. The air suddenly seemed three times as thick. "I do, too…"

All eyes turned accusingly on Purple and Amber. Blushing a deep shade of emerald, Purple snatched up the organish-red eyed Amber and hurried out of the room to change her offending diaper. Amber giggled and shouted "bouncy bouncy!" as Purple rushed from the room to the bathroom with her. Amber loved being bounced by Purple as he carried her around, but this was neither the time nor place for her games.

As soon as Purple was gone, Red leaned over the table. "How would you guys like me to take three large planets off the list of potential Irken acquisitions?"

The three Jackers looked at one another, then back at Red. "And what," the female asked, her voice smooth as velvet, "Would we have to do to get this… trade?"

Red looked in the direction of the door Purple had exited through. "Take care of a small bit of excess baggage for me."

The Jackers, possibly the only more immoral species in the heavens than the Irkens, grinned back at Red.

---

Let's try the art link again: www.angelfire.com/ak5/comic/sketch/ 


	5. Spit Bubbles

Red leaped out of bed feet first, throwing off the covers. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood," he sing-sang as he brushed back his antennae, straightening out the sleep kinks. 

He's given the Jackers all the keys and security bypasses they needed to sneak into Purple's room once the tallest had gone to bed. Once there, they would snatch a sleeping Amber from her cradle, and do away with her as they saw fit. And Red would be able to sleep through the nights once more.

"No more Amber," he muttered gleefully to himself, rubbing his palms together before sliding on his heavy white gauntlets. "I slept the whole night without waking up once to "Wah, wah, wah!"

Just as the words left Red's mouth, a loud "Waaaah!" resounded from the next room.

Red's antennae immediately feel as his eyes narrowed into slits. Those stinking, lying Planet Jackers," Red muttered as he stormed into Purple's room, kicking open the door.

"Purple! Shut your brat up!"

The bed was empty and still made, apparently having not been slept in.

"Purple?" Red inquired, looking about the room. "Purple?"

From her cradle, Amber stood up as tall as her smeet legs would allow, her tiny orange-red eyes and little green fingers peeking over the edge of the bars. "Mama? Mama?" she asked. Her tiny stomach-like organ rumbled and she rubbed it hungrily. "Mama?" she asked again, her eyes boring questioningly into Red's.

Slowly, two and two were coming together in Red's head, and they weren't adding up the four he'd expected. "Uh-oh…" was all Red could say as he stood there, a wailing Amber by his side.

Holding Amber upside down, not to be mean but because he simply lacked any knowledge of how to properly handle a smeet, Red stormed into the next room. Turning on a private communication line, he contacted the Jacker ambassadors.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" he screamed into the microphone.

The Jackers jumped, looking confused. "We… did exactly as you requested."

"I wanted you to take this, THIS!" Red hissed, holding up a confused looking Amber. "Not my co-tallest!"

The Jackers looked back and forth at one another. "You wanted us to kidnap a baby?" the female asked, incredulous.

"Not even _we're_ that immoral!" another ambassador chimed from behind her.  
"You throw thousands of babies into your sun every year!" Red argued, exasperated.

"Yeah, but it's not like it's anything _personal_," the Jacker shrugged in response.

Red slapped his forehead. "Look, okay, you messed up. Just return Purple and all will be forgiven."

The Jacker female smiled slyly at Red. "What about the three planets you promised us?"

Red cringed visibly, causing Amber to giggle at the funny face he was making. "All right, all right. You'll get your planets. Just return Purple safe and sound!"

The Jacker continued to smile. "Once you tell him that the reason he was kidnapped was because you wanted us to kidnap his infant daughter."

What is the sound of one Irken jaw hitting the floor? Whatever it was, it was the sound Red made at that particular moment. "You've got to be kidding," he shrieked, his voice rising up a pitch so he almost sounded like Purple.

The female shook her head. "No, we're serious. We know you Irkens. You'd try to pin the kidnapping on us to keep your own innocent. Just confess to your friend that you were responsible for the kidnapping, and we'll return him. Easy as that."

"Never!" Red cried, waving a fist in protest.

A male standing to the left of the female lead leaned over to his boss. "You know, I'm sure the Meekrob would give us more than three plants for the precious Irken leader."

"You wouldn't dare!" Red sputtered, his fingers gripping the keyboard so hard the joints were starting to turn white.

"Wouldn't we?" the female asked. "After all, that's why you hired us. We're immoral. You have twelve hours to decide if you're going to apologize of if we're going to turn your friend over to the Meekrob. Any attacks on us will jeopardize his life." With that, the female reached over and cut the transmission.

While Red ran in circles like a chicken without its head on, not that he knew what a chicken was, Purple stood up from behind the female Jacker's chair.

"Did I do all right?" she asked.

"You deserved an Oscar," Purple said politely, stretching out his long arms. The truth was, they'd attempted to snatch Amber while he was in the bathroom. He'd emerged before they'd managed to get away. The Jackers, fearful for their lives, had immediately given in and confessed to the tallest why they'd attempted to kidnap his daughter.

After a few moments, Purple had looked slyly at them. "Don't worry," he grinned. "I don't get mad… I get even." 

Red finally stopped panicking long enough to realize that he was alone in the room. "Amber?" he asked, looking curiously around. "Amber?" Nothing but silence and the occasional space cricket chirping, which reminded Red that he needed to schedule an appointment with exterminators to get the Massive fumigated again.

Suddenly a sharp, biting pain came from within his pouch, causing him to squeal and double over, holding his midsection. "What the hell?" he asked, pulling it open.

There was the missing Amber, lying on top of the sandwich he'd been saving, attempting to… well, Red didn't want to think about what she was attempting to do, but it involved feeding herself. She was biting because she was irritated that nothing was coming out.

"Oh no you don't!" he cried, yanking on her. Amber growled and dug her baby teeth in tighter, clinging to his skin. "This is worse than parasites!" Red moaned as he finally managed to pull hard enough to dislodge the mini-parasite from his body, tumbling backwards in the process.

As he fell, he hit his head on a shelf. As he hit his head on the shelf, a large jar filled with decorative marbles fell over. As Red fell flat on his butt, the marbles rolled towards the edge of the shelf, and all down onto his head. One by one they fell, eliciting no less than thirty-two cries of "ow" from the now wounded tallest.

Amber giggled and clapped her tiny hands in approval, despite the fact that her tiny organs were still rumbling for food. The door to Purple's chamber slid open as Morris entered. "Your tallest, you didn't come down for Amber's smeet food yet. What's wrong?" Finally noticing that the tallest on the floor surrounded by marbles with Amber on his lap was not Purple, Morris blinked.

"Your tallest? Where is… er… your other tallest?" She wasn't sure if it was socially acceptable to use the tallests "names" in public or in front of one another or not, so she simply skirted the issue. 

"Never you mind that, you have a hungry smeet on your hands!" Red said, thrusting Amber forward.

"Oh, no, your tallest! She _never_ lets me feed her! She just keeps asking for her 'mama' and shutting her mouth when I get near her."

"But she was just biting me!" Red snapped. He could still feel the sting of her tiny teeth against his flesh.

"Oh, that means she really likes you!" Morris said brightly, smiling. 

Red flailed his arms wildly. "I don't want her to like me!" he cried. "I don't even like her!"

Amber, meanwhile, had crawled across the floor and was snuggling up to Red's ankles like a loving puppy. "Aw, she's so cute!" Morris giggled, completely ignoring Red's rants to point at Amber. 

Red was about to drop-kick Amber when she looked directly up into his eyes, her own big eyes wet with tears. "Hungry, baby hungry," she whimpered as one big, round dab of whatever fluid it is Irken bodies are lubricated with. "Where mama?"

"Your mama… er… doing important official business," Red lied, backing away from Amber. She sniffled, looking up at him. To anyone else, it would have been the innocent stare of a hungry child, unable to comprehend what was causing her pain. To a guilty soul like Red, however, it was a stare of accusation.

"Perhaps she'd take food from you. You do look and probably smell a bit like him."

"No way," Red replied, vigorously shaking his head in disagreement. "I ain't letting her redecorate my front with spit."

Morris sighed, her shoulders slumping forward as she leaned towards Amber, taking the kicking smeet in her arms. "Come on, little one, you're going to have to take treats from me or not at all.

Amber wailed like a hurt banshee as Morris carried her out of the room, her squeals broken only by hiccups and desperate cries of "mama!" Amber, it seemed, had reached the "clingy" stage of her childhood, and being separated from her mother-figure was the most traumatic thing that could happen to her at that point in her tiny development.

Red was allowed a quiet half an hour to ponder the situation with the Planet Jackers. First he kicked a table. Then he swore a bit. After that, he hovered around the room in wobbly circles and uneven ovals. 

He was going to have to give in to their demands. There was no way Red could see around it, short of sending a small army after the Jacker ship, which could be hiding anywhere by that point. Not to mention that the first thing they'd probably do if threatened would probably be to send poor Purple to the heaven.

Red balled his claws into fists and threw back his head, a mangled scream-groan emitting from the back of his throat. He hated giving in. He hated, hated, HATED it! He needed something small to kick…

As if on cue, Morris entered, carrying a sniveling Amber in her arms. "Sir, please. I know you're a tallest and I'm a lowly servant, but Amber needs to eat, and she won't take anything from me!"

"She'll eat when she gets hungry enough," Red answered, staring intensely at the miserable smeet. She was small, and if he used his imagination, _almost _shaped like a football. After all, she'd been the cause of all his problems… Purple would never know…

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of her," Red purred, snatching Amber from a startled Morris' arms. "You can go now. Shoo, shoo," he said, waving her off with his long fingers.

"But your tallest, you just said…"

"Forget what I said and do what I say!" Red snapped, pushing Morris out the door and slamming it in her face as she tried to stutter a response.

Turning quickly around, Red plopped Amber down on the floor. She rolled over on her back, giggling and kicking her legs in the air. "No, no!" Red scolded, sitting her upright and turning her around so her back faced him. "Now, you just sit like that, and…" he said, drawing his leg back.

Amber fell over on her side, blowing spit bubbles out of her mouth. "No!" Red cried in frustration, bending over and sitting her back up. "I can't punt you when you're lying down."

Amber, not seeming to understand, drooled on Red's hand. "Ewww!" he complained, wiping his hand on his robe. He'd have to make a mental note to have that robe burned.

He sat Amber back down. Amber way paying very little to no attention to her, as her stomach was still empty and she was busy babbling away in smeet-talk.

Red backed carefully up. This time, it was straight to the moon with the tiny cause of his problems. He swung back his leg, mentally counting down. Five… four… three… two…


	6. You Can't Win

Right as Red finished drawing his leg back, a tiny voice cried out in panic. "Stop!" it shouted.

Red jumped a good two feet in the air, hoverbelt or not. That had sounded like an adult's voice, but it had also sounded so tiny… how could someone tiny possibly be questioning his will?

Red whipped around, ready to bean the intruder on the head. No one there. He turned to the left. Again, he saw nothing. He turned the to the right. Only empty space met his gaze. That meant the voice had to come from directly in front of him…

Red turned slowly forward, then let out a scream of shock and fell backwards, smacking the back of his head as he landed. "Ow," he cried, rubbing his wounded skull. "Who the heck are you?"

Floating in the air at barely Red's chest height was a tiny Irken. Not just tiny by a tallest's standards; the little Irken could only have been maybe six inches from foot to antennae tip. It was dressed in a flowing crimson gown. A tiny pink halo floated above the miniature Irken's head, and a pair of scarlet wings fluttered behind it. The little Irken looked up at Red with unhappy crimson eyes.

"I'm your conscience," he answered, not sounding the least bit pleased.

"My conscience? Shouldn't the conscience of a tallest be a bit… I dunno… bigger?" Red asked, confused.

"I wish," it muttered too quietly for Red to hear. 

"Didn't I tie you up and launch you out of a cannon the day they announced my name as tallest?" Red inquired, chewing on one finger thoughtfully.

"Yes, but that's not what I'm here to discuss," the conscience cried, flailing his tiny arms. "You can't kick that baby! She's defenseless, and doesn't have the chance to strike back or even attempt to protect herself from harm!"

"It's her fault that Purple got kidnapped, and to keep anyone from knowing I have to do his job as well as mine! That's twice the work!"

"That's not her fault and you know it. Besides, you usually wiggle out of doing your work anyway. Doing some work will be good for you, it builds character!"

"Riiight. Look, little angel-thingie, if you're done ranting at me I've got a baby to punt to the moon…"

"You will not! It's wrong!"

Red leered at his conscience. "How are you going to do that, teeny-tiny thing?"

The conscience held his ground, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you even think of hurting that baby again, I'll set my big brothers on you."

Red nearly collapsed from laughter, doubling over and holding his ribs. Between gasped attempts to fill his lungs with air he said, "What could your big brothers possibly do to ME?" With that, he reached over and flicked the angel's halo off his head.

The conscience's eyes lit with tiny flames. He reached into his front pocket and drew out a new halo, putting it back on his head at an angle. "That's it! I hate to do this, but it's for your own good," the conscience scolded, shaking a skinny finger at Red.

Red was about to wave the conscience off when a tiny voice in his head whispered, "You shouldn't have had that extra donut for breakfast! Now you're going to get fat, and no girl wants to mate with a fat guy!"

"Huh?" Red asked, surprised by the sudden voice in his head. Another one spoke up. "It's all your fault that Purple got kidnapped. You're a baaaaad Irken."

"What did you do to me?" Red screamed, clawing at his head. The two voices weren't done with him by any means, however.

"That dress makes you look ugly! Ugh, it does nothing for your complexion."

"You should have gone left instead of right at that fork in the star system. If you'd done that, none of this would have happened."

"Ooooh, you must be the stupidest Irken ever! You're so stupid, I bet you couldn't even find your way out of a paper bag. By the way, did you remember to turn the stove off when you were done using it? Probably not, you're too dumb to remember that."

"Kicking a baby? What were you THINKING? You must be some kind of monster!"

The angel, still hovering in front of Red, smiled smugly at the tallest. "My big brothers are Guilt and Self-Doubt."

"Make them stop, make them stop!" Red cried, banging his head against the wall. He didn't even notice the pain it was causing him in his panic to get the tiny, obnoxious voices out of his head.

"You agree that kicking Amber is wrong?"

"NEVER!" Red cried defiantly.

In his head, Self-Doubt muttered, "What the heck is up with your voice? It sounds like you swallowed a frog and it died down there!"

"Okay, okay! You win, you win!" Red cried. The two voices instantly diminished to nothingness.

The angel shook his head. "I don't like to win that way. It seems like a hollow victory…"

Red turned back to the angel, his eyes flaming. "If I can't kick Amber, I'm going to punt YOU to the moon!" he cried, grabbing the little conscience out of mid-air and drop kicking it. With a scream, the conscience sailed through the ceiling and out of sight.

Red dusted off his hands. "There, now that that's taken care of I'll just find Amber and…"

"Find Amber and what?" a familiar female voice asked. Red whirled around to see his communication line with the Planet Jackers open, the female looking inquisitively at Red. "It's time to make your decision, my tallest," she said, coyly putting her arms around Purple. He looked bound and gagged, but he could easily have gotten out of the ropes if he'd desired.

Red looked down at his feet. "It was my fault you got kidnapped."

"He can't heeeeear you!"

"It was my fault you got kidnapped, okay?" Red shouted angrily.

The female smiled and squeezed Purple's shoulders. Purple, meanwhile, was doing his best to look both terrified and hurt. "And why was it your fault."

"…"

"Come on, WHY was it your fault."

"I got sick and tired of your stupid whiny baby and paid the Planet Jackers off to kidnap her, okay? FINE! THERE! DONE! Now send him back!"

Purple slowly reached his arms from behind his back and removed his "gag." Grinning at Red, he lolled his tongue out as a show of superiority. "I win," he said simply, letting Red know exactly how much he'd been played with two simple words. 

Within moments Purple was back on board the Massive via an electronic teleporter. He frowned when he saw Red, busily ripping up a pillow from anger. "Nice to see that you found something to take your anger out on besides an innocent smeet," Purple commented dryly.

Red looked at Purple. Purple looked at Red. Then, with a cry like a wounded animal, Red lunged at Purple. Caught by surprise, Purple felt the impact of Red's hands against his throat and his belly, throwing him backwards and into a wall. 

Red made a second lunge. Without really thinking Purple threw up his leg, but the result was an effective and satisfying crack against Red's chest. That wasn't enough to stop Red's advance, however, as Red swung his left fist down to connect with Purple's eye.

Amber, sitting quietly on top of a ripped up pillow and watching, knew something was wrong. Her mommy was pinned against a wall, kicking frantically as a large, strange male attacked him. She saw droplets of blood fly up against the wall as Red managed to rake his claws against Purple's face. 

Now, normally a tiny smeet would have no idea what blood was. But Amber, it seemed, actually HAD picked up pieces of tallest Purple's memories from the few moments she'd been attached to him. A quick memory of blood flying against a wall flew through her tiny mind, the ghost of a memory for when Purple had seen several members of his military squad killed by a knife-wielding alien. 

Blood was bad, Amber knew. She tried to rush to her mother's rescue but quickly found that tiny hands and knees were neither a fast nor efficient means of transportation. There had to be some other way…

Amber did the only thing she could think of. She threw back her head and let out a wail that could have awakened the dead. Red, caught by surprise, turned his attention the crying smeet. It was only a split second, but long enough for Purple to bring his knee up fast and hard into Red's unprotected groin. 

Red fell backwards, landing hard on his side. Purple tried to struggle back into a standing position but a shock of pain through the left side of his body sent him sprawling back to the ground. At least the fact that Red was currently thrashing about in misery kept Purple safe as he reached out, grabbing his bloodied communicator in on hand. "Guards… please… help me," he coughed. At least he wasn't spitting up blood. That would be really bad.

The prompt guards were shocked by what they saw. Tallest Red lay on his side, his robe hiked up to just below his hips, his hands pressed between his legs as he whimpered in pain. Across the room, Tallest Purple lay against the wall, his legs extended before him and blood tricking out of a cut over the front of his face. Amber, being faster than most adults would believe, had scuttled across the room and was draped over Purple's feet, whimpering "mama, mama?" miserably.

Amber set silently by as a doctor set Tallest Purple's fractured arm in a sling. "How did this happen?" he asked, applying a smelly coat of medicine to the front of Purple's face.

"A disagreement," Purple sighed, "about whether or not a joke was funny." Purple felt horrible inside. He'd only wanted Red to lighten up, and perhaps get a chance to realize that he could like Amber. Now the chances of him ever accepting the little bundle of bounces as one of his own was virtually null. After all, between the kicks and the punches, Purple had seen something he'd never be able to forget.

Red was crying. 

Even Amber seemed to understand the seriousness of the moment. When Purple tried to offer her a nighttime bottle, she looked at it for a few moments before turning her face away and shutting her eyes. Concerned, Purple sat her down on the bed and massaged her tiny back. Normally his actions would have her squealing with joy, but the oppressive mood had seeped into the uncomprehending child. She simply lay there, occasionally sighing.

Purple called Morris immediately. "She won't eat, she won't giggle when I massage her, she just LIES there."

"Babies are more sensitive to things happening to their parents than you'd believe, my tallest. All your anger, your wild emotions, and seeing her mama being hurt probably got to her. But babies are also more resilient than you'd imagine. She should be fine by the morning, or at the very latest noon luncheon."

"You think so?" Purple asked, cradling Amber against his chest. Amber's thumb was in her mouth, her tiny eyes shut. 

"If she's not, I'll look over her, and even have a doctor look over her."

Morris turned out to be the expert on the subject. My six that morning, Amber was awake and wailing hungrily for her Purple, who arrived promptly on the scene despite the fact that his sleepiness left him tripping over his own feet. Amber eagerly accepted the bottle she'd refused the previous night. Any trace of her being upset seemed to have vanished from her shiny eyes.

"I love my Amber, yes I do! Yes I do!" Purple cooed, blowing bubbles on her stomach. Amber giggled joyously. Suddenly her laughter stopped; something in the doorway seemed to have caught her attention.

Seeing a bandaged Red standing in the doorway, his shadow spilling across the floor, Purple held Amber as tightly to his chest as he could with one arm. Before he could say a word, Red spoke.

"Do you love her more than me?" he asked.

Purple's voice caught in his throat. "Red, you're my best friend. I don't "love" you in the way that I love her, but you mean more to me than anything else in the Empire!"

"Anything else except that little brat, of course."

"Don't call my baby a brat!" Purple snapped, backing cautiously away from Red. Red noticed the action.

"So you're afraid of me now?"

"I don't know what to think about you now. Please don't make me chose between Amber and you…"

"Why not?" Red asked, sweeping threatening close to a retreating Purple. His grip on Amber tightened once more. The fingers of his damaged hand curled around the device to call guards quickly to his room.

"Because you won't win," Purple answered before he had a chance to think. He was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth. Judging from the look on Red's face, however, Red was beyond surprised. He was shocked, and above that, he was pissed.

After a few moments of random sputtering, Red turned heel and bolted out of the room. Purple, left behind, sank to the floor. 


	7. Chasing Amyber

Red twitched in his bed, clutching the sheets to his chest. His slender body tossed and turned underneath the fine sheets. His face was drenched in a cold sweat, his breathing deep and fevered. In his dreams, a giant Amber was pursuing him. Her smeet-feet were as big as cars. Red dived sideways to narrowly avoid being crushed by a foot.

As he lay on his back, terror written across his features, the dream Amber grinned evilly at him. Too late, he realized that she was standing over him and had no diaper on. "NOOOOOOOO!" Red screamed, throwing his arms over his face as the final weapon descended on him.

Red sat bolt upright in bed, grabbing at his night robe and gasping desperately for air. "I have to get rid of that smeet before I go insane!" he whimpered, throwing himself back down amidst the piles of rich pillows. "But if I do, Purple will immediately suspect me… oh, what do I do?" he moaned dramatically, rolling over and burying his face in the sheets.

Meanwhile, Purple tucked lavender sheets up underneath Amber's chin. Her tiny thumb as in her mouth as she happily sucked, safe inside her smeet crib. "Sleep tight, angelkins," Purple cooed. "Have lovey-dovey dreams of pretty things, my little sweety-weety kins!" It was enough to almost make the servant staff loose their cookies.

Purple sighed. Red had been almost non-existent over the last few days, and had been giving Purple a very obvious cold shoulder when the two had been together. He couldn't believe Red's behavior. Just that day, he'd pointed out that someone had been donuts and Red had shrugged and said, "Yeah, so?"

Purple threw himself down on his bed. "Sir, will you be needing anything else?" his servant asked.

"No, you're dismissed for the night."

"Thank you, Sir," the masked-faced Irken said, bowing politely and exiting.

As soon as he was alone, Purple wept.

Amber waited patiently until her mommy was sound asleep, then extended her tiny spider legs and escaped from her crib. She knew mommy was sad because red-eyed not mommy was being mean. Even a smeet could tell that much, and downloading a piece of Purple had made her a super-smeet so to speak.

Amber skittered down the hallway, her tiny spider legs clacking on the metal floor. It was time for all non-security Irkens to be in bed, so no one even noticed as her tiny, dark form passed like a silent spirit down the halls. Somewhere in the part of her that belonged to Purple's memories, she knew what door she was looking for.

Finding it, Amber pressed in a code a smeet shouldn't have logically known. Peeking her tiny face in the door, she looked back and forth. Except for the fact that it was decorated in reds and oranges, it looked just like her mommy's room. Everything was laid out the same.

That made things easier on Amber. She crept over to Red's bed, leaning over him. He was making funny noises in his sleep and smelly water was coming out of his mouth. Icky, thought Amber as she wrinkled up her antennae.

Unfortunately, the not-quite-asleep Red chose that moment to open his eyes. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Red screamed.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Amber screamed, bolting for it.

Red grabbed up a baseball bat that he kept around from his high school days. "That's it, I'll teach you to invade my personal room!" he howled, tearing down the hall after the frightened Amber. 

Red chased Amber over hill and over dale. Well, actually, he chased her up and down pretty much every floor in the Massive. He was finally gaining on her, within inches of grabbing her, when his hoverbelt let out a sick noise and a puff of smoke. The poor, overworked thing quit.

"Oh, crap," Red muttered as he fell heavily upon the ground. The shock of the impact from his body traveled up and into an impossibly ill-stacked pile of boxes. The boxes tipped forward.

Red let out a cry as one landed on his back, sending a tingle up his spine and into his brain. He tried wiggling out from under it, but couldn't wiggle more than a few inches to either side. His spider legs were trapped in his pack by the weight of the box, which seemed to become heavier with every moment. He could hear mechanical things and bones in his back and chest cracking, sending shooting pains through his body. 

"Help me! Someone help me!" Red called desperately, knowing it wasn't going to do any good. He was down in the fifth storage bay, where the health food snacks were kept. They only went down there to feed prisoners. He could be down there for months before anyone found his body, starved to death.

"HEEEEEELP ME!" Red sobbed, clawing at the metal ground.

Hanging above by her legs, Amber frowned. The last hour's chase was still fresh on her little mind. This was NOT her friend that was down there, sobbing in pain and begging for help. Amber stuck out her tongue at Red and turned tail on her mechanical legs, heading for the door.

She only made it as far as putting her hand the knob before her small conscience over took her. But what could she DO? There was no way she could lift that box, and she didn't know how to operate the lifting crane. Think, Amber, think, there has to be something you can do!

Amber did what she did best in a tight situation. She sat down and cried.

"Great," Red muttered. "Like that'll really…"

"What's that unholy noise?" a security officer moaned, slamming open the door and stomping into the storage bay.

"HELP! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP ME!" Red screeched. 

"Who's down there?" the officer asked, suspicious. "A thief?"

"No! A box fell on me when I was… trying to catch a run away smeet."

"Oh Gods! Are you hurt?"

"Don't ask me a stupid question like that and get help!" 

Within a few hours, Red had been freed from under the box, and was lying in the royal hospital, his body covered in bandages. His legs were both in casts and his right arm was suspended in the air. 

Purple, holding Amber, frowned at Red. "You owe Amber your life, Red! One of your ribs was so broken it almost punctured your spliver!" 

"It was HER fault I was down there! She was in my room without permission, provacating me to pursue her and thus causing my horrid injury."

Purple smiled. "Poor Red. Provacate isn't a word. It's pro-voke."

"Provoke!" Amber chirped. Red glared viciously at her.

"That smeet… you mark my words, Purple, I'll get her! One day, I'll get her!"

Purple smiled. "I'll worry as soon as you're out of traction. For now, I've got some work to do. Watch Amber for me while I go…"

"No way! Purple! Puuuuurple! Purple! Puuuuurple!" Red cried, his voice going up a pitch with annoyance. Amber, sitting on his non-functioning legs, grinned broadly at him and made a loud tooting noise.

"Eeeeeew! Someone change her! I'm gagging in here, gas attack! Someone… anyone? Nuuuuuurse! I can't reach the call buttooooooooon…"

The End.


End file.
